February is the absolute worst. Football season is over, as much as the executives at ESPN try to convince us otherwise. Spring Training is underway and although people claim ‘baseball is here” it’s still hard for me to get excited when St. Louis still has a few inches of snow sitting on the ground. On Thursday the St. Louis metro area was basically shut down due to snow. While I was trapped indoors for the better part of two days, it made me realize that this is my least favorite time of year on the sports calendar.

Baseball is, has, and always will be my favorite sport. I cannot wait until baseball season starts so this time of year is torture. While I am the cold of St. Louis and my view the last few days has been the picture above, the players are being shown on TV playing catch under the Florida sun. The cold weather and snow leave me very hungry for some warm weather and baseball. Watching the players in Spring Training play catch is nothing but a tease to me. I compare it to someone putting a thick, juicy steak in front of me on the dinner table and telling me that I have to wait an hour until I can eat it, even though it is sitting there right in front of me. It’s gotten to the point that it’s hard for me to watch Spring Training coverage on TV. The bad thing is, there really isn’t anything to distract me from it right now.

The St. Louis Blues have a decent distraction but I am not a huge hockey fan. I have always been a Blues fan, but their games aren’t what I would call “must see tv” until the postseason begins. We don’t have an NBA team here in “the Lou” so I have never really been a fan of the NBA game. I really don’t pay much attention to the NBA until the Conference Finals. I love NCAA Basketball but at this point of the season it’s just building toward the best month in sports. The NCAA Tournament is what begins to get me over winter, and looking forward to baseball season.

My winter blues start going away whenever the NCAA Conference Tournaments begin. It the bigger conferences these tournaments many times don’t matter to many teams except for seeding purposes. The beauty to me lies in the smaller conference tournaments where teams are fighting for their only shot at getting into “the dance.” We have a good conference tournament locally. The Missouri Valley Conference tournament, called “Arch Madness”, takes place in St. Louis and it is one of those tournaments. The Valley usually only gets one team, sometimes two, into the NCAA tournament. Selection Sunday is one of those things that I would consider “must see tv.” Those first four days of the tournament are like Christmas for me, the 2nd weekend is like New Years Eve. The NCAA Tournament also makes it ok for me to follow Spring Training because that’s when I can feel baseball coming.

Don King sure has to be glad that Twitter wasn’t around back in the day when he was promoting fights. Twitter could handle all of the “stirring up the pot” without a Don King. In today’s showdown, we have Darrelle Revis vs. Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks.

I never seen a man before run his mouth so much like girl. This dude just steady putting my name in his mouth to get notoriety @rsherman_25

Not much I can say about Michael Jordan that hasn’t already been said or written in the last couple of days. He is simply the best that I have ever seen. This video sums up Jordan perfectly. Highlights set to Nelly’s “Heart of a Champion.” This video is gold for all Michael Jordan fans.

After ten plus days of technically difficulties with my laptop, I am back. I guess if there were a good time for this to happen to me, it would be during the slowest part of the sports calendar. There have been some noteworthy stories in that time however that I will be sure to touch on at some point. Stories like the newest PED scandal in Major League Baseball, and the possibility that Chris Carpenter may have thrown his last pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals. Also, a belated happy birthday to Michael Jordan.

The upcoming weeks are an exciting time to be a sports fan. Baseball teams are starting to gear things up under the Florida sun while we wait patiently in the cold for baseball and the warm weather to return home. College Basketball is winding down the conference season gearing up for Championship Week to decide the conference champions. Then the best playoff system in sports takes place, March Madness. I love when the tourney starts knowing it builds to a crescendo until it ends and turns things over to baseball season. Looking very forward to March!

This signing has been generating quite a bit of talk in St. Louis. I personally love this move. Titus Young is the perfect low risk high reward kind of guy. If we were still in the Spags/Devany era I would be nervous. They wouldn’t have taken a chance with this guy because of their “4 Pillars” approach which didn’t produce on the field. Jeff Fisher is a different animal. He knows how to handle problem players as well as anyone in the league. How often have any of his players tore apart a team? People can point to Vince Young but that had little to do with player/coach relationship as it was about coach/owner relationship. I think Fisher can handle Titus Young. If he doesn’t handle him I can promise that he won’t let Young tear apart the team, he’ll send him packing.

There isn’t anything about the game that interests me in any way at all. Except when dumb things happen on the “pitch”. This is one of those things. Can you imagine a baseball player hitting a bat boy?

Well another football season has come and gone. Now begins a somewhat slow sports news cycle until March Madness begins. To follow the lead of St. Louis Post Dispatch writer Bernie Miklasz who does his random “Bernie Bytes”, I am going to go the same thing that I will give my initial thoughts, and revisit these ideas throughout the week.

Shannon Sharpe picked the 49ers to beat the Ravens during the pre-game show. I just couldn’t believe that he would pick against them.

The McDonald’s commercial with the player being presented with his All-American jersey that aired before the game had a neat message behind it. The kid finding out in the way he did that he was a “McDonald’s All-American” the way he did was a really cool and touching message. That part was really cool. Channeling my best Billy Madison I will just say the part I didn’t like is when the coach had his players eat McDonald’s. If you are a high school basketball coach the last thing that you want is for your players to be eating that garbage. I love that McDonald’s honors these players, but please, don’t ever take try to credit the “food” you serve as any type of benefit to them making it to where they are.

Good old “prop bets” what better way for a guy to enhance his “entertainment value” with a few “milkshake” wagers on the big game. When some are feeling generous, they wager 50 milkshakes. You and your friends can wager all day long on these things. I kept a keen eyes on 6 things. The coin toss, what the first play would be, the over-under, the most popular commercial, how many interceptions, and the overall winner. Will report back on the milkshakes I will be collecting. Update… 3:42 MondayI put 25 on the Ravens. Since they were the underdog, the odds weren’t in my favor, but it also paid more. I won 63 on that game alone. I correctly picked the coin flip (heads), the first play of the game (pass), and the over 47 1/2 points. I missed out on the over 1 1/2 interceptions in the game. I still have one pending waiting on USA Today’s final ratings meter on the best Super Bow Commercial. Being a homer I predicted the best commercial would come from AB.

The first 49er Quarterback to ever throw an interception in the Super Bowl was Colin Kapernick. How crazy of a stat is that!

Wizard of Oz The commercial for the new version of the Wizard of Oz has me fired up. I loved the original movie, it aired once a year on CBS and we watched it every year. I cannot wait to see the modern version.

The Fake was the ultimate WTF moment of the Super Bowl. There has to be some sort of back story to why John tried that there. It could have cost him severely.

I missed “The Return”, as I was cleaning things up and getting the game back on. I personally hate when the returner return any kick in the end zone but this was what a real kick returner can do. Lightning flash.

Power outage during the Super Bowl? Congrats New Orleans for shanking the basics. No excuse for this happening during the Super Bowl.

John Harbaugh was hot following the delay. I cannot wait to hear what he was so upset about. The discussion was very animated. That was the only time in the game that he lost his cool.

With the lights going out in New Orleans, can the NFL top itself next year and have a blizzard in New York?

NFL=WWE… it is amazing sometimes how you can just read how a football game is going to go the same way we used to be able to pick up on how the WWE matches would go. It’s beginning to get eerie.

The handshake between the Harbaugh’s was great. All in all, it had to have been a great night for John grabbing bragging rights over his little brother.

Ray Lewis had all of his post game talks planned. He knew exactly what he was going to say and how he would say it.

This week our local ESPN sports radio affiliate, 101.1 ESPN’s drive home show “The Fast Lane” hosted by Randy Karraker, Super Bowl Champion Demarco Farr, and World Series Champion Chris Duncan, has their weekly top ten poll. This week’s category was their favorite Super Bowl moments. That made me think of enough things that I decided to compile my own list with videos.

#10

The Whitney Houston National Anthem.

I was a 14-year-old freshman in 1991 for this one. Growing up during a time of peace, you really don’t get a sense of what it really means to be patriotic. A few weeks before this moment, I stayed awake all night with my eyes glued to CNN watching the first hours of Desert Storm unfold. I didn’t realize what it really meant to be an American until that war began. During the lead up to the Super Bowl all of the talk of extra security surrounding the event really helped to understand the magnitude of what was going on halfway around the world. Patriotism was at an all-time high when Whitney Houston stepped up to the mic and moved a nation to tears. It is still to this day my favorite version of the Stars Spangled Banner that I have ever heard. The game that day was also one of the best games to ever be played, but for me, it was this that really stands out.

#9

Leon Lett

Let me start by saying, I was a fan of Leon Lett. The guy was a hell of a football player, and he was flat-out dominant at times. But this was one of those time that you have to steal the words of the late great Fred Sanford (played by St. Louis native Redd Foxx) “YOU BIG DUMMY.” I was Dallas Cowboy fan at the time since our city didn’t have football. This play had nothing to do with outcome of the game, so I really couldn’t be mad about it, but it was just a really bone headed play. I was much angrier at him the following Thanksgiving.

#8

9-11 Commercial

This commercial turned the room completely silent. When this commercial was finished, everyone looked around the room and just mouthed “wow” toward each other. Powerful, powerful commercial. The best memory, of what was otherwise an awful day for me. One of the worst days of my life as a sports fan.

#7

Thank you Giants

As 101 The Fast Lane’s Randy Karraker would say, this was the day the Giants “saved the world” from the Patriots going undefeated. I have always respected the Patriots, but after learning all of the “spygate” stuff it was nice to see them get knocked off of their fake throne. They would have been known as the “greatest team in NFL history”, but the Giants righted the universe. Somewhere, the football gods are smiling.

#6

The Quarter

I admit being an offensive guy, this should be higher on my list. The only problem is that I didn’t see it actually happen live. I set my VCR that morning to record the game just so that I could watch it throughout the year until football started again. Kids, back in our day we didn’t have youtube and stuff like that to just pull things up and watch them. When the first quarter ended a friend and I went outside to throw a football around. We went back inside at halftime and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the score. Needless to say, I watched the video of that 2nd quarter countless times. Doug Williams was ridiculous in that quarter.

#5

Marcus Allen

This was the very first Super Bowl that I ever remember watching. That was back when the Big Red were still here in St. Louis and I remember watching the Redskins play them that year and I thought the Redskins were awesome. I knew for sure that the Redskins would be the Raiders. Even thought the game was one-sided I still thought that somehow, someway, the Redskins would come back. I thought that until this play happened. This was the first time watching football that I had that “How did that happen” kind of moment. This run was amazing

#4

Jordan vs. Bird

I am even surprised myself that I put this up this high. For myself, and millions others, the Super Bowl commercials are as big as the game itself. There have been many years that I didn’t care that much about the game but just couldn’t wait to see the commercials. This is the first “big” commercial that I remember ever seeing. This one had everyone talking. There have been many great commercials before and since this one, but this is the commercial that got me hooked on the commercials.

#3

Super Bowl Shuffle

Has their ever been a more badass move in NFL history? People like to make a big deal of Joe Namath’s guaranteed victory. While that was great, this wasn’t just one person, this was a WHOLE TEAM coming out and doing a music video. They knew that they were going to beat the asses of whoever they played. And this video is the proof. That team was awesome!

#2

Joe Cool

The day that I realized who the best quarterback of all-time is. I was actually rooting for the Bengals that day because I was 12 and a fan of the “Ickey shuffle.” Watching this unfold ticked me off. That’s when I realized, when the game is on the line Montana just doesn’t miss. Of course the legend grew even more as the years went by hearing the story about the timeout before the drive. Legend has it that when the 49ers got into the huddle Montana, almost starstruck, pointed out actor Tom Candy in the crowd. The message the team got from that was Montana had no doubt they were going to get it done, that he was that excited to see an actor in the stands watching him perform. If there is a 2-minute drill that my life depends on…I want Joe Montana at the helm.

#1

St. Louis gets a trophy of its own

The greatest day of my life as a sports fan! I was six years old in 1982 when the Cardinals won it all so I don’t really remember that. The Cards (and Don Denkinger) broke my heart in 85, and again in 87. The Cardinals and the Blues took turns breaking my heart. The funny thing with this team…I wanted to believe, but those past heart breaks made me skeptical. There was a point that year that I tried to talk myself out of the fact that they looked the like the best team in the league. Heard all of the critics saying “they haven’t played anybody” and yes, that had me worried. When the playoffs started and we played the Vikings, they drove right down the field and took an early 3-0 lead. It took the Rams one play to respond. Kurt Warner connected with Isaac Bruce and the track meet was on. I had little doubt from there on out. The Rams did make me sweat through the NFC Championship game and the Super Bowl was the most nervous I think I have ever been. I could not eat or even drink a beer that day. I was that nervous. I decided to be seated in the back of the room because I was one of the ones most likely to have to stand up, and I didn’t want to be in anyone’s way. The last play of the game, I was in front of everyone, on my hands and knees praying for the stop. Mike Jones made the tackle, we all kind of held our breath for a moment when the official turned on his microphone and said “the runner was stopped short of the goal line, the game is over”, then…all hell broke loose. The guy who owned the home the we were in lifted me up and put a bear hug on me that damn near crushed my lungs. It was madness for a few minutes. I decided to be the driver that night because I really didn’t need to drink, I was walking on air. The owner of the house insisted I had a glass of champagne and how could I resist that? While driving to downtown St. Louis we were listening to the Rams radio broadcast and they kept playing the clip from Rams play by-play guy Mike Bush “ST. LOUIS, THE GATEWAY TO THE WEST, IS NOW THE GATEWAY TO THE BEST FOOTBALL TEAM IN THE WORLD!” It gives me chills every time I hear it.

The radio broadcast signed off that night by playing Van Halen’s “Standing on top of the world” with audio clips from the game. It was a perfect way for the station to sign off. Once that was over, we put on a not yet released CD of our former roommate’s cousin, some guy by the name of Nelly, and we headed downtown. We stayed down on Laclede’s landing until about 3am that night. Problem was, I had to be at work at eight. Fueled by adrenaline I decided when I got home, I would watch the highlights of the game (yes I had recorded it) and drink Mountain Dew and just not sleep. I did that and made it through the work day just fine, but I did tell them I didn’t feel good and may not be there the next day. When the work day was finished I went downtown and got set up for the victory parade, the first one I ever had the chance to see. It was cold, but the parade was incredible. I took pictures with a cheap disposable camera, so I stopped at Walgreens on the way home to get them developed. I went to a pizza joint next door and had dinner so that by the time I was finished the pictures were also finished. I picked up the pictures, and a 6 pack of Budweiser. That may have been the greatest 12 hours of sleep in my life.

The NFL giving back to the community. Sure this isn’t what they had in mind but god bless em, they sure are helping out. Reminded me of the old movie “The Program”, where Alvin Mack was the big middle linebacker, and he wasn’t smart at all. His catchphrase from that movie was “All I gotta know is how to sign an NFL contract.”